Fishing the life from our oceans - Industrial fishing emptying the seas

Wherever they operate, industrial fishing fleets exceed the ocean's ecological limits. The trend of the past century is of fishing down the food chain. As larger fish are wiped out, the next smaller fish species are targeted and so on. Of the major stocks globally, 10% have been over-fished or are recovering from over-fishing, 15-18% are known currently to be overexploited, while 47-50% are at their biological limits. The context of Indian waters (Arabian / Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean) is of crucial importance globally, as the resource is being harvested in a manner which can be regarded as sustainable. However, this is likely to change as the fishing fleets head for these waters, once they have depleted stocks in other regions.

While the area is one of the few with untapped marine resource potential, it is also without doubt a region with one of the most poorly managed fisheries in the world, with illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities.

More and more people are competing for less and less fish and exacerbating the existing oceans crisis. Regulation of fishing vessels is universally inadequate. Worldwide, this kind of a fishing industry is often given access to fish stocks before the impact of their fishing practices is known.

Moreover, the fishing practices destroy habitat as well as inhabitants. Bottom trawling, for example, destroys entire ancient deep sea coral forests.  As impacts are felt throughout marine ecosystems, scientists are warning that the oceans will suffer profound changes as a result of over-fishing and destructive fishing practices.

See:

Bottom Trawling

By-Catch